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Intel’s Management Network Adapter

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

The card supports wake on LAN

or WOL. That is, if your PC supports soft power off and is connected to the mains all the time, then the network administrator can power on your PC any time. This is done by sending a special type of data packet containing the adapter’s specific Ethernet address. The adapter is supplied with a small cable that has a 3-pin connector at each end. One end is attached to the adapter and the other end is attached to the 3-pin WOL connector on the motherboard. When the computer is powered off, the adapter continues to operate by using +5 volt standby power through the 3-pin cable in the computer. For WOL to work properly, you must ensure that your motherboard supports WOL and that the appropriate settings are made in the BIOS.

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 The card’s diagnostic software lets you check for network response times The card has excellent diagnostic capabilities that get installed along with its drivers. It sits in the system tray from where it can be launched any time. It can be set up as a sender or responder for testing networks. For this, packets are sent across the network to another computer having the same card as the sender. The responder card then echoes back these packets. This is useful for testing individual systems as well as testing for response times on network segments.

You can monitor the card’s link activity through a window in the monitoring software. Thus, you don’t need to peek behind your PC to look at the LEDs every time to check whether the card’s working. 



The card also has remote boot capabilities. For this, a utility called Boot Agent is stored in a flash memory chip on the adapter, allowing the adapter to remotely boot the system from the network using either of two methods–PXE, or
RPL. The default method is PXE, a remote boot procedure used by powerful network management programs such as Intel LANDesk Management suite. The alternate method–RPL, is an established industry standard used for remote booting of diskless workstations from network OSs such as NetWare and Win NT Server. 

Installing the card is hassle-free as it’s plug-and-play. It has drivers for all popular

OSs, including Win 9x/NT and NetWare. It has the same core driver suite that works for desktops as well as the laptop version. What’s more, it comes with a lifetime warranty.



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